Jan 16, 2008 06:07 pm what speed of a hard disk do you have, I am guessing it can't write that fast.
Question regarding a compys limitations .
Posted on Jan 16, 2008 06:05 pm
Hue
Pinnipedal Czar (: 3=
Member Since: Apr 11, 2004
I've been doing some tests as of late, still trying to pin-point where that digital crackle developed from . I've noticed that I can record 8 to 10 tracks of 16/44.1 for a very long time(1hr+), but an upgrade to 24/48 recording produces latency/artifacs that sound much like clicks/pops/crackle after 10-15 minutes of recording . Obviously, I've got to rethink my approach to get a higher quality product, under these conditions . My question is 'WHY' do these conditions exist . Am I miss appropriating buffers, or something ? CPU remains untaxed... 10-15% max after tweaking . Seems like this thing should be a 'lil slicker .
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Jan 16, 2008 06:07 pm what speed of a hard disk do you have, I am guessing it can't write that fast.
Jan 16, 2008 06:18 pm 7200 SATA2
One for the system, and the other for files .
80gig, and a 250gig .
Jan 16, 2008 06:19 pm at first i thought it might be ram. Then I read your profile. Nope, not ram - lol
Are the CPU/Disk meters reading pretty high at all?
Could be a crapped out VST. I've had a reverb plug-in that used to do this to me as well.
Jan 16, 2008 06:21 pm Naw... 10-15 % with all the dynamics I need . Dual CPUs meters toggle back and forth with little variance between the two . Appears very solid .
Jan 16, 2008 06:22 pm got anything running services that might be interrupting writes...background **** like anti-virus', spyware scans, spyware actually doing stuff...stuff like that?
Jan 16, 2008 06:25 pm Dan, this thing is SO clean . Os, Sonar, Pyro... and that is it . It doesn't need to do anything but record . Totally stripped .
Jan 16, 2008 06:33 pm Maybe it's just my twisted perception of what a computer with these specs should be able to do ? I mean, I can get by with these limitations, but what does it take then to get some consistancy in production ? Could someone clarify this ?
Jan 16, 2008 06:34 pm I'll assume it is an internal drive?
One thing with upping it to 24/48 is the fact that the load it now puts on the gear may appear small but it is putting a much bigger tax on the read/write buffers and passing that on to the AD/DA converters and hardware.
You can try upping the buffers and see if that helps. And no, they are not the same as the latency buffers.
Jan 16, 2008 06:38 pm Yes, it is internal .
You're refering to the soundcards buffers... in the control panel, right ? What's a good place to start with them ? It does fine with 16/44.1 at 256... up't to 512 there wasn't much relief at 24/48 .
heh I'm a noob again !
Jan 16, 2008 07:06 pm What you're saying does make sense... maybe this thing needs a 10,00rpm Raptor to deal with the flow .
Edit: Just to confirm, Noize, are you talking about the i/o buffers... the ones measured in KBs, or the other ones . Sorry, had a few... can't recall the actual placement of the adjustment, and it's on the other compy which is presently not on .(switchy-thing broke) : )
Jan 16, 2008 07:13 pm No, not the sound card buffers.
You are using Sonar 6 PE so the options should be the same. Go to the options, audio tab and bring up the applet. Then select the advanced tab. At the top is the file system section. You can try enabling either or both the Read Caching and Write caching to see if either or both help. I run the write caching if I know I'm going to be pushing the system.
the default buffer sizes are 512 for playback i/o and 128 for record i/o. Try setting the Record I/O up to 356 then to 512. Although I would not recommend 512 your resources are good enough you might get away with it and not suffer any added latency.
But these settings are actually independent of the cards settings and the ASIO buffer as well.
Another though would be to try the WDM drivers instead of the ASIO drivers. I know with the ESI cards I sometimes get much better results using the E WDM drivers they supply which are a highly supped up version of the WDM driver format.
Jan 16, 2008 07:17 pm Got it . Thanks . : )
I am using WDM drivers... she didn't like ASIO at all . 'Was looking at 5.4ms of delay with all three cards in WDM . Half that with ASIO, but I degress...
I'll will run some more tests tomorrow . Thanks for the clarification .
Jan 17, 2008 08:22 am If those don't help you out, there always perfmon, or performance monitor. I just ran it in WinXPHome, and it's still there =).
Back in the NT days, we'd use this often to troubleshoot problems on servers. You can use this to add certain parts of monitoring of certain parts of your PC. It's a lot more detailed than the task manager performance tab.
You can watch each part independently, and really zero in on what may be problems in your PC.
You might try asio4all too, as i've heard good things about that running well where others have not.
On a nifty side note, we bought this 'home' PC for the house /kids / internet / etc. to replace our computer fire losses, and just bought a fair one from dell. I was thinking it was a Plain P4 2.8, but in task manager / perfmon, it shows 2 processors. heh, how cool.
Jan 17, 2008 11:11 am I am very amazed that the buffers don't resolve this issue when cranked that high. I run mine at 128 (I can hit 64 but don't when doing 8 tracks at once).
Also, I use the raptor (36GB) as my system drive and that is where audition is installed, but I record to a standard 160GB IDE drive. I used to do this on a 7200K RPM drive on my laptop which had only one so I don't think a raptor is going to help you.
It seems to be something with your ASIO drivers because your PC is pretty darn fast.
Jan 17, 2008 05:12 pm Thanks guys . I know I'm missing some adjustment somewhere . I will try more tests tonight... mess with the buffers, the cache, and try EWDM, and ASIO4all drivers .
I really would like to believe that this thing should be able to choke-down 8-10 tracks at a time, and not give me issues when I goes to tweak 'em .
Jan 17, 2008 08:55 pm Ya Hue, I"m only running an AMD at 2.2 gig with 2 gigs of ram and I can wail out a huge track count with my playback buffer at 512 and the recording buffer at 128 as I stated the default above was.
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